Mother's Day
by ebon-drake
Summary: A story of loss and hope as the important people of the past and present are remembered. Set in the DoTU timeline with influences from both Go-Lion and DDP. Contains adult themes. Rated T. COMPLETE.


**Disclaimer: **Voltron and its characters, settings, and story line are copyrighted by World Event Productions, Ltd. and Toei Animation Company. DDP comic concepts and ideas are copyrighted by Devil's Due Publishing. Cover image is a screenshot from Purrsia's website, "Voltron Central." References to areas of the Denubian Galaxy (i.e. Azure Quadrant, Onyx Star System, etc.) are from the map developed by Shannon Muir and sanctioned by WEP. All other names, places, characters, and plot bunnies are my own unless otherwise noted. I am in no way affiliated with the aforementioned companies. No monetary profit is being made from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended. Please do not do not re-post or reuse this work without obtaining my written permission first. Thank you.

**Last Revision Date: **5/4/14

**Author's Note: **This fic is my response to the KAEX Mother's Day challenge. It's meant to be bittersweet, and set sometime about earlier in and up to halfway through the DoTU timeline, so it's more the seeds of K&A being planted than anything else. The idea of Nanny grabbing Allura and taking off after Zarkon killed Alfor was borrowed from Drowningblonde.

**Mother's Day, Ch. 1**

Taking a deep breath, Allura began her descent down the rough-hewn set of stairs after the doors closed behind her with a loud hydraulic hiss. Her left hand was being pricked from the stalks of greenery that stuck out from the pale-colored floral wreath that she was currently holding, and she used her right to grasp at the earthen wall to her side in order to steady herself as she stepped carefully downwards. She was in no real danger of falling, however. Behind her trailed two armed guards at a respectful distance with lit torches in hand. She would have preferred to be without their company altogether, for she viewed it as an unnecessary precaution, but Coran had been relentless in his desire for her to go nowhere unless she had the benefit of some form of escort, and so she had given in to his wishes so that he would finally relax and get off of her case about it. True, the catacombs had been breached a few times in the past through the largely forgotten nooks and crannies of the connected cave system that could be accessed from the outside if one was knowledgeable of their locations, but most, if not all, of them had been tracked down and sealed. Her advisor had not wanted to take any chances, however. She supposed that he was justified in his paranoia, but still... It was not as if she was wandering out-of-doors alone. She expelled a brief exasperated huff of air, but then her features became grave again, and she continued on her journey to where the dead of the royal families of Altair were kept.

The air gradually became cooler and seemingly denser, with just a touch of earthy dampness mixed in with it. While the darkness was not pitch black, it was still very dim, and the torchlight made the natural formations of the subterranean chamber that she and the guards soon entered come to life and assume twisting supernatural shapes that danced against the walls. From this central room were numerous passageways that radiated out in all directions, and they promptly took the one that was to their immediate right. In sharp contrast to the area that they just left, the passageway they now occupied was all smooth lines and straight corners. The walls were decorated with distinctive bas relief carvings of lions and other images of royal authority. They passed a few large, heavy metal doors before they finally came upon one in particular, the entrance to the crypt of House Leonaire.

The Princess of Arus turned around and addressed her entourage. "Please wait outside here. I wish to be alone for this."

Both of the guards glanced furtively at each before the most senior of them answered her. "Your Highness, our orders from Prime Minister Coran were to escort you-"

"I am aware of your orders, and you have followed them to the letter," she explained patiently, although inwardly she bridled somewhat at the reminder of her advisor's intrusive, albeit well-intentioned, authority over her, "However, what you see before you is the only entrance to my family's crypt, and any danger to me would have to first pass through you. With such strong, brave men to safeguard my life, surely there is no mortal force that can hope to overcome you... I promise I will not be long."

An uneasy pause followed her subtle command, and it was obvious that they were torn between doing what they had been ordered to do and acquiescing to the desires of the heiress apparent.

The guard who was doing all of the speaking finally sighed and bowed towards her. "As you command, Your Highness. We shall remain here. However, please do not hesitate to alert us immediately if you notice the presence of any threats inside."

"I thank you, Captain Mathil, and I will do so," Allura responded diplomatically, "I believe that I will be safe enough, however, but I will be sure to notify Coran of you and your companion's diligence." She then dipped her head towards them, causing the tendrils of blonde hair that escaped her chignon to bob in the air around her face, "If you will excuse me."

Both of the guards bowed reverentially towards her and assumed stationary poses flanking either side of the entrance. Turning towards the door, she pressed her free hand over a set of protruding nodules set into it, entering in a particular sequence. The locking mechanism of the massive portal soon disengaged with a loud series of accompanying clicks. She then put all of her weight into pushing it open, and a burst of stale air rushed out to greet her when the task was finally done. Mentally girding herself, she took the torch that the younger guard was holding and stepped inside.

The chamber that the princess entered was expansive and filled with row after row of ornately carved sarcophagi. She traveled underneath a forest of white stone pillars until she arrived at the location where her parents were interred. She respectfully lowered her head towards her father's sarcophagus, but rather than venturing near it, she instead went to the one located right next to it. It was wrought from a rose-colored marble, with delicate floral patterns incised into its sides. Its lid featured the effigy of a young-looking woman in formal attire and locked in an eternal repose. She inserted the torch into a nearby bracket and then briefly touched one of the effigy's cheeks, her cerulean eyes holding a combination of wistfulness and regret, although the remainder of her expression was unreadable. The coldness of the marble seemed to steal into her from her fingertips and sap her very warmth. Bowing her head, she withdrew her hand and then brought the wreath that she had been holding forward and placed it gently on the effigy's brow. She then returned her hands to her sides and was still for some time, lost in her thoughts. Eventually, the sound of someone rapping gently on one of the pillars brought her back from her reverie.

"I have not been in here for that long! Why do you disturb me- ," she demanded, an undercurrent of displeasure in her tone, as she turned around, and then stopped, "Oh, Keith!" her cheeks promptly flushed pink. "What brings you down here? Is everything okay?"

The black-haired commander of the Voltron Force peered around the pillar that he had been behind, the torchlight throwing shadows upon his face. "I'm sorry to bother you, Princess... Everything is okay. I just wanted to make sure that you were. You seemed really down today."

Allura momentarily looked down at her feet and then back up at him. "O-Oh, thank you. Yes, I am more or less fine. I just came down here to... think."

He seemed to notice something in her expression, for his next words were exactly what she needed to hear. "Is this a vigil, or could you use some company?"

"No, you can stay, if you want. I bear no ill will to my guards, for I know that they are just doing their duty, but I just needed some... breathing space, for lack of a better phrase."

A sympathetic smile crossed his handsome face. "It's for your own protection, Princess... but I do understand where you're coming from. If I had to go everywhere with someone following me, I would probably go nuts."

She brought a hand up to her lips in an attempt to stifle the small chuckle that nonetheless escaped them. "It's not as bad as all that..."

Keith strode over to her and eyed the sarcophagus that she stood next to. "This is your mother, isn't it?"

The humor that she had been displaying promptly disappeared at his question. "Yes. This is the body of the late High Queen Sofia Leonaire, my mother."

The formality of her own words seemed to dispirit her even further as she sank down to her feet upon one of the steps of the raised dais that the sarcophagus sat upon. Concerned, he soon joined her, sitting close to her, although not so close that it was inappropriate.

"Did you want to talk about it?"

So many conflicting emotions were welling up inside of her that Allura did not even know where to start.

After a while, she finally spoke. "I always had a good relationship with my father, and never forget to pay my respects to his memory. I am ashamed to say, though, that I have not been as diligent with my mother's..."

After a pause pregnant with unarticulated grief, longing, and bitterness, she elaborated more on her brief explanation, "To be fair, I do not remember her as well as I do my father. I can recall her face somewhat, and that she was kind, but also distant... That's about it. In the times that she was there, it was almost as if she wasn't. From my understanding, my parents' marriage was not as ideal as I was led to believe at first... I don't know all of the specifics other than that it was arranged." She clenched her fingers tightly together and then relaxed them as she sighed morosely, "I like to think that maybe they found love later on in their marriage... At any rate, after my father was defeated in his duel with Zarkon and later executed, Nanny immediately snatched me up and ran for the caves. My mother was elsewhere with my younger brother-"

The Black Lion pilot's dark eyes widened in surprise. "You had a brother?"

A small smile crossed her lips and was then gone. "Yes. Alexander. He was only a baby at the time... I hated him so much when he was born because everyone stopped paying as much attention to me, but I gradually came around - he wasn't so bad. He didn't cry as much as I purportedly did when I was his age... Anyways, Coran went to go retrieve him and my mother and then meet up with Nanny and I down in the tunnels, but when he finally came back, it was only Alex who was in his arms, and he had died on the way from breathing in too much smoke... My mother was already dead at the scene from a shot to the head. That's what I was informed of, at least... I never told him, but a little while after all of this happened, I went through Coran's paperwork and saw something concerning her. Evidently, she had committed suicide."

For a moment, he was too stunned at this revelation to even speak, but then he took her smaller hands within his own larger ones. "Princess, I'm... so sorry... I had no idea."

"It's okay, Keith," Allura smiled sadly once more, "After I found out what she had done to herself... I didn't know what to think at first. I was confused, and then sad... Then I was angry... really, really angry. After my father's death, she just... abandoned me and brother when we needed her the most. However bad things were, her own children were not enough to make her stay in this world and continue fighting. I understand that we were under attack, but things weren't hopeless... and they still aren't. I thought her act the ultimate expression of cowardice and selfishness, and to a certain extent, I still do... I could never stop thinking about what could have been... maybe she would still be alive, as would my brother... maybe everything would be different now. But I know now that she was... slightly unwell. That does not make what she did any better, but...," she then sighed again, "What was done cannot be undone, and holding onto such anger has a way of slowly poisoning someone. I... don't want to become a person like that, so caught up in past grudges that I lose track of the present and the future, even if I am completely alone now."

Before he could stop himself, Keith squeezed her hands reassuringly, his touch unconsciously lingering, but she did not even seem to notice this fact. "I don't think you will become like that. You know what's important to you: your people and your home. You keep those two things at the forefront of your mind at all times, and it makes you...," he stumbled on his words somewhat and flushed, "Shine. Your people give you hope, and you give it right back to them. It's really beautiful to watch."

She brightened slightly at his words, even though there were slight tears in her eyes, and she returned his gesture. "That means a lot to me, Keith. Thank you."

He then added, "And you're not alone, Princess. We might not be your blood relatives, but Coran, Nanny, me and the other guys... we're still your family."

Allura suddenly became aware of the fact that they were holding hands and abruptly snatched hers away as if she had been touching a hot stove, her cheeks coloring an even deeper red. "Th-thank you."

As all of this happened, Keith had the grace to appear mortified by his forwardness with her. Both of them then stared abjectly at the floor before the silence was once again broken by conversation.

"A-anyways, as I said earlier, I have been neglectful in my duties to her as a daughter, and that's not right; I wanted to correct that and pay my respects to her memory. What she did does not change the fact that she is still my mother," she stated.

Another awkward minute passed, and then she said to him, "You never really told me about your family."

Keith ran his hands through his dark hair and for a moment looked very boyish. "Oh, um... well, my parents met when my dad passed through Hong Kong while on a business trip. I guess there was some sort of chemistry between them, because he eventually moved there to be with her, and then a few years after I was born, we all moved to the United States, where my dad had family in California. We settled in, and he eventually started teaching me martial arts in the dojo he opened up over there. It was... nice, peaceful." For a moment, an almost wistful look entered his chocolate-colored eyes.

Her intrigue over what his life was like before he came to Arus made her briefly forget her embarrassment and sorrow. "What is your mother like?

"Her name is Liu Yang. She was pretty soft-spoken, really kind," he answered her, "She worked with animals... loved reading. My parents got a long pretty well... I don't remember ever hearing them fight. They raised me until...," he paused, and his expression darkened, "I turned 12. My aunt and uncle took me in after that."

"What happened to them?" Allura queried, curiosity and dread evident in her delicate features.

"They died in a vehicle accident," he replied curtly.

"Oh, my God...," she breathed, bringing her hands up to her lips, "I'm so sorry, Keith. I had no idea. It wasn't my intention to dredge up such sad memories for you."

His stony face soon melted into an expression of discomfiture, and he moved one of his hands up in a dismissive gesture. "It's alright, Princess. No harm done."

"Still, though... don't you miss them?" she pressed him, her limpid gaze shining with barely-contained tears of empathy.

The commander's acknowledgment to her question was simple. "Every day."

Before she even knew what she was doing, the Princess of Arus flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "I am sure that they have never stopped thinking of you."

"I...," he trailed off and swallowed the lump that was forming in his throat, "Thank you, Princess."

He hesitated, but only for a moment, and he returned her embrace. They remained locked in this position for what seemed an eternity, awash in memories and unspoken desires that neither of them were even cognizant of yet. The sound of their heartbeats filled each other's awareness and then became it entirely.

It was a long time before they finally broke away from each other. She blushed furiously and then looked away from him, self-consciously tucking a few errant strands of hair behind an ear as she did so. "We should... probably go. The guards are still waiting outside the door."

"Oh, I told them they could go if they wanted - which I hope was okay. I didn't think that you would mind since I was down here with you, and Coran can rest easy since you are still technically not without an escort," Keith said, looking sheepish and, once again, much younger than his 26 years.

Allura nodded, trying to ignore the way her heart was beating so rapidly. "I appreciate that, thank you. I would have felt terrible making them wait out there all this time. We should still go, though... a lot of time has passed, and if I know Coran at all, he will start worrying soon if I'm still down here."

"You're probably right," he conceded after shrugging his shoulders somewhat; there wasn't much that her advisor _didn't_ worry over.

As they both rose to their feet, she became suddenly pensive. "Would you mind giving me a minute?"

"Of course, Princess. Take as much time as you need."

When he began making his way towards the entrance to the crypt, she quickly pressed her fingers to her lips and then placed them onto the stone cheek of her mother's likeness once more, but this time the gesture was one of farewell and affection rather than regret and residual anger.

She bowed her head and whispered, "I forgive you, Mother... Rest in peace. Happy Mother's Day."

She then withdrew her hand and straightened back up before turning around, retrieving the torch from the bracket, and joining Keith from where he stood waiting for her by the doorway.

* * *

Later on that night, the pilot of Black Lion stood alone along the shoreline of Sky Lake, the body of water that surrounded the majority of the Castle of Lions and that Blue Lion called its home. In his hands was a small parcel wrapped up in a piece of coarse cloth. He bent down before the water that lapped near his booted feet and removed the cloth from the objects it concealed. After a few moments, he pushed an oil lamp into the water, a small flame leaping from its wick.

As he watched the lamp beginning to drift away from him, he bowed his head and whispered, "Happy Mother's Day, Mom... Rest in peace."

He paused and seem to think on something, and soon sent out a second lit lamp.

"Take care of her, Dad... you rest in peace, as well."

He then sat down on the ground and watched the lamps drift slowly away from him in the gentle waters of the lake until they gradually became mere pinpricks of light. After a while, they disappeared... and then the only light was from the stars that shone piercingly in the sky above him.

* * *

A little while later, Nanny bustled into her tidy quarters while wiping her large hands on her apron, her work for the day at long last complete. As she began to tug at the strings in the back so that she could take the soiled garment off, her dark eyes lit on a tasteful arrangement of _betan_ flowers, her favorite, placed on her dresser. Next to it lay a nondescript card.

"Oh, my, I wonder who left those in here..." she wondered out loud to herself as she momentarily forgot the task that she had been in the middle of.

Her curiosity prompted her to investigate. After brushing her fingers along the soft orange-pink petals of one flower, she opened the card and began reading it. After a few moments, she found herself blinking back tears as she replaced the card and sat down on the edge of her bed.

It remained open upon the top of her dresser, and the following script was visible inside it: _You did not bring me into this world, but you helped usher me into it. You have done so much for me, and I know that there is nothing that I can possibly give back to you that can even begin to equal it except for perhaps my love. You are amazing, Nanny, and I don't know what I would do without you. Happy Mother's Day._

**END**


End file.
